Dave Wooley wrote:Callen This is 1: 700 scale scratch building at its most impressive and awe inspiring.
Thank you Dave. Much appreciated.
Dave Wooley wrote:How you manage to work in such fine details is just amazing. Question do you make use of an optical visor?. I have to resort to one and I'm working in the gigantic scales of 1:144.
I've had some gents at the club ask me similar questions. I'm just about to turn 40, so I'm fairly young in the hobby. I'm the only one of my brother and sisters who didn't need either glasses or braces, much to my parents relief, both of whom wore glasses as well. I don't have any explanation for that, other than I am young. Many of my modeling friends have told me that eye problems start in your 40s, so I thoroughly expect to wake up to a blurry world on my birthday.
... not really. Hoping the eyes will hold out for a while longer.
I think it kind of works out. When one is young (relatively) and strapped
one buys small (hopefully) cheap kits and builds those. This also helps when your home houses three growing kids all with their 'stuff' competing for the available space, etc. As one gets older and (hopefully) more financially secure, and the eyes start to lose their sharpness, one can migrate to larger more impressive scales. I expect the day will come when I will begin to invest in the traditional wooden ship hobby where the subjects hover around 1/96-1/72 or so. And that will be fine with me. But I'm comfy in 700th world for right now.
Dave Wooley wrote:I am not too familiar with the Carrack but are references plentiful or do you have to do some of your own primary research?
The only research I can do is read archaeology books that pertain to ships like the
Mary Rose, the Red Reef Wreck, the Bremen Cog, the Highborn Cay Wreck,
Girona, etc. etc. and then consult the period depictions like everyone else. I've learned a lot building and casting these hulls, posting them here and getting feedback from this community. I feel like I have a reasonably competent grasp of these ships now, at least enough for modeling them in such a small scale, though if I were doing this over right now there would be things I would do differently, based on what I've learned.
Dave Wooley wrote:At 1; 700 what material will you be using for rigging?
I plan on using Black, Brown and Tan Nylon Monofilament, better known as 'Doll Hair'. Have bought several packages at the local Hobby Lobby (while heavily disguised, in case anyone I know should see me in the doll section:big_grin:)
Dave Wooley wrote:This is what I truly like about this board it attracts so many talented builders and the subject material is so varied thus much more interesting.
I feel.... the same way. Actually let me tell you exactly how I feel.
I started posting these pics about a month ago or so. I immediately got a lot of positive feedback, some of it from modelers whose names I knew or had at least heard before. I felt pretty good about myself at that point. Then I started to look around... *gulp*
Scratch building the engine room of the
Lusitania? Are you
Kidding Me? Then there's this guy, whose name I shall refrain from using who built an RC
Kiev that, as far as I can tell is flawless. Not to mention Bob Carr with his 'one rivet at a time' ironclad, Moomoon and his rare and wonderful torpedo boats, Italian Yamatos, masters like Egberth, Russ Clark, Vladimir Yakubov, Bill Waldorf, ARH and all the rest... I gotta tell ya. I'm just happy to be here.
I see stuff on this board every day I have no idea how to do, and not sure I could do it even if I did. I sometimes get the impression people think 700th scale is challenging because of the size. What I think is challenging is taking a pile of plywood and a couple of buckets of auto putty and making it into something that's not only recognizable but
Scale. And then detailing it, motorizing it, ballasting it and putting it on the water. That just blows me away. You know I can rough out and detail up the hull of one of these little sailing ships in a few days. These guys spend
months, sometimes
years getting their hull done. I want to try it someday, but right now I'm content to sit back and admire them.
Dave Wooley wrote:My interest in sail is mostly in the period long after the Carrack but I do appreciate the skills involved working the detail into such vessels.
It's funny, you know, this was really a whim for me. I don't think of myself as the 'Carrack Guy'... It was Maxim who got me turned on to the idea of scratching sail and Tom Lindsay who got me thinking about carracks. Once I got to thinking about it, I couldn't resist trying it.
I don't know what ships you're talking about but I'd be willing to bet I'm interested in the same ones. Over on the main board I asked a question 'what navy do you prefer?' etc. I wanted to know because I wanted to see if there is anyone like me. I was telling my new Portuguese friend Filipe over on Facebook yesterday that I have this dream to have the evolution of Naval Technology all on my shelf� from the caveman on the log to the Nuclear Submarine... all the important relevant steps in the evolution of the ship in one scale, in one place. I love the idea of putting an
atakebune next to the
Yamato, or the
Mary Rose next to the KGV or the
Hood. Just to see them together in the same scale I think can tell you a lot, and graphically depicts how far technology has come in these past few centuries. But I want to do it all really. Like somebody on that thread said: 'if it floats, I'm interested in it.'
The problem is, learning about something like Carracks (or the Galleass, or the Galleon or the Trireme...) you start to get the 'fever.' You don't want to do just one. You know I'm going to have to do the
Mary Rose at some point. And the
Marie de la Cordeliere, and the
Caterina di Monte Sinai and a few others... There's just way too many ships out there.
The real trick will be getting both sides to look uNiFoRm 
